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  Java Practices -> Look and Feel guidelines
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<div class='page-title'>Look and Feel guidelines</div>

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<br>The <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/jlf/ed2/guidelines.html">Java
Look And Feel Design Guidelines</a> published by Sun have many useful recommendations
regarding user interfaces.
<p>Some important points :
<ul>
<li>
changing look and feel is meant as a design tool, not as a runtime tool;
that is, Sun recommends that applications should <i>not</i> allow the end
user to change the look and feel at runtime.</li>

<li>
labels should always have an associated mnemonic, to allow navigation through
the keyboard (<tt>Alt + F</tt>, for example) instead of the mouse. Two
common exceptions are the default button (activated by hitting Enter or
Return) and the Cancel button (activated by hitting Escape) - these should
<i>not</i>
have an associated mnemonic.</li>

<li>
choose mnemonics according to the <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/jlf/ed2/book/HIG.Menus2.html#51461">typical
menu styles</a>, if possible ; otherwise, select the first letter, a prominent
consonant, or a prominent vowel, in that order of preference.</li>

<li>
use the <tt>JLabel.setLabelFor</tt> method to associate a mnemonic with
an element which would not otherwise have one, for example a <tt>JTextField</tt>.</li>

<li>
<a href="http://java.sun.com/products/jlf/ed2/book/Appendix.A.html#47001">common
shortcut keys</a> (<code>Ctrl-N</code> for&nbsp;<code>File-> New</code>,
for example) usually have the Ctrl key as a modifier.</li>

<li>
the spacing of elements should be multiples of 6 pixels (6N) ; if one of
the elements has a white border, then the spacing should be one pixel less
(6N - 1).</li>

<li>
dialog title bars should contain the application name, for example "MyApp:
Preferences", and "MyApp: About".</li>

<li>
<tt>JOptionPane</tt> messages should begin with a short, bold header on
a single line (this can be implemented using HTML tags <tt>&lt;bold></tt>
and <tt>&lt;br></tt>).</li>

<li>
Sun publishes a useful <a href="http://java.sun.com/developer/techDocs/hi/repository/">graphics
repository</a></li>
</ul>
<a href="http://java.sun.com/products/jlf/ed2/book/HIG.Menus.html">Menus</a>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="http://java.sun.com/products/jlf/ed2/book/HIG.Menus2.html#51461">typical
menu style</a> follows the order File, Object, Edit, Format, View, and Help. 
Any further menus are placed immediately before Help.</li>

<li>
menu titles should be a single word, while menu items may have more than
one word</li>

<li>
ellipses (...) are used only when further user input is required</li>
</ul>
<a href="http://java.sun.com/products/jlf/ed2/book/HIG.Visual3.html#78028">Capitalization</a>
<ul>
<li>
almost all short textual items (menus, buttons, labels, for example) should
have headline capitalization, where all words are capitalized except for
common words with up to three letters (a, an, the, and, or, so, yet, etc.), 
<i>and</i> do not appear as the first or last word.</li>

<li>
if the text is not short, then the capitalization used in ordinary prose
(sentence capitalization) should be used instead.</li>
</ul>
<br>

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<div class='topic-section'>See Also :</div>
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  <a href='TopicAction7910-2.html?Id=150'>Standardized dialogs</a> <br>
 
  
  <a href='TopicAction06a5-2.html?Id=158'>Change theme</a> <br>
 
  
  <a href='TopicAction11fc-2.html?Id=167'>Input dialogs</a> <br>
 
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